A World Apart: Growing Up Stockdale During Vietnam

By Sidney B Stockdale

My memoir traces the events of my early life from 1962 to 1974 when my family found itself in the epicenter of the Vietnam War. When I was eleven years old my father, then Commander James Stockdale, was shot down and declared "missing in action" in September 1965. The emotional impact of that news devastated me, my mother&n

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stockdale Press
• Release date: Oct 24, 2023
• ISBN: 9798218125448

Book preview

Introduction

My father was Vice Admiral James Bond Stockdale, a naval aviator, and during the Vietnam War he was the highest-ranking naval officer held as a prisoner of war (POW) in the infamous Hanoi Hilton. The North Vietnamese detained my father from 1965 to 1973, and during his captivity they tortured, dehumanized, and isolated him in incomprehensible ways. Prior to being shot down and captured, my father was also one of the pilots involved in the Gulf of Tonkin incident, an affair that served as the justification for the United States to overtly enter the Vietnam conflict with the full force of the American war machine.

My mother, Sybil Bailey Stockdale, also played a significant role during the Vietnam era. In addition to raising four boys essentially by herself, she led the charge against the Pentagon and the Johnson Administration, demanding official recognition over what was happening to America’s brave service members being held by the North Vietnamese, and obtaining support for the families struggling at home.

The story of my parents has already been told both in print and on the screen, but as for me, it is extremely difficult to describe what it was like growing up in a military family during the Vietnam War and to have my father held as a POW for more than seven years by the North Vietnamese. How does an eleven-year-old boy understand and process that his beloved father has been shot down and is missing, and that the government is telling us to keep quiet and not talk about our situation with anyone? There is no easy answer, and the emotional scars caused by years of such uncertainty last in one form or another for a lifetime, which probably explains why memoirs from my generation and demographic are non-existent.

I admit that both my mother’s and my father’s experiences during Vietnam were highly unusual and, as a result, my personal journey was extraordinary as well. My father began fighting in Vietnam the very first day the war officially started at the Gulf of Tonkin in August 1964, and some would say he fired the first shot of the war. As a navy fighter pilot, squadron commander, and Carrier Air Group commander (CAG16), he flew more than two hundred bombing missions during the first year of the war. Then, on September 9, 1965, his airplane was shot down and he was listed as missing in action (MIA). Seven months later we learned that he was alive, and for the next seven years he was the senior naval officer held by the North Vietnamese in Hao Lo Prison.

There were no tours of duty for our family. With the exception of a five-month stint at home between deployments (from November 1964 to April 1965), my father was fighting in that war for nine years and four days. He returned home in February 1973 after the cease-fire was declared and the POWs were finally released.

On the home front, my mother’s frustration with the incompetence of our federal government in dealing with the POW issue inspired her to found, along with other military wives in the same circumstances, the National League of Families of POWs and Missing in Southeast Asia. During the first four years of the war, the government told the wives and families of POWs to keep quiet about their circumstances and not speak to anyone, especially the press. At the same time, some of these wives working secretly with naval intelligence at the Pentagon began sending and receiving coded letters from their husbands in Hanoi.

Very early in the war, these secret messages confirmed the American POWs were being tortured and subjected to lengthy solitary confinements. Yet it was imperative that the secret system of communications remain hidden to protect the POWs from being accused of espionage by their captors, a charge potentially punishable by death. Given this highly unusual balancing act, the women of the National League had to conceal their knowledge of the truth while trying to convince the US Congress to publicly acknowledge the mistreatment of American POWs and, ultimately, demand that the Hanoi government recognize the Geneva Convention concerning the treatment of POWs.

After years of fighting to be taken seriously, in 1969 the National League finally became the official voice on the POW issue in Washington, and my mother and other League leaders met regularly with Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon to help shape policy.

Like most people, and perhaps because I am a retired history teacher, I am used to people describing the Vietnam War as our national nightmare. I am now ready to describe my experiences as a young boy watching the realities of that nightmare unfold all around me.

In 1984, a decade after the war ended and when many government documents were declassified, my parents published their memoir, In Love and War: The Story of a Family’s Ordeal and Sacrifice During the Vietnam Years. It details their story through alternating chapters, and it’s an amazing account of heroism, endurance, and loyalty on a scale all its own. It is still considered required reading for young navy couples today.

When I first read their memoir, it opened my eyes to the truth about my parents’ experiences and I finally began to piece together events from my own past. Their book allowed me to understand both the horrific treatment that my father endured at the hands of the North Vietnamese and the inspirational leadership he demonstrated alongside his fellow prisoners. It also illustrated for me my mother’s tenacity and indomitable spirit in organizing and leading the POW wives across the country, and in no small way taking on the very top of the Johnson Administration and Pentagon. I cherish their book as a testament to my parents’ love and faith in each other.

Then, in March 2016, I received a copy of my mother’s diary one year after her passing, and another window opened for me. Mom’s diary became the key that unlocked the gates of my defenses and gently allowed me to finally walk through those years with a different maturity, fill in the gaps of my fractured memory, and relive my story once again.

It is from this confluence of events that I was inspired to write my story about those years when I was aged nine to eighteen, so my daughters could understand how my brothers and I withstood the range of emotions during Vietnam. Furthermore, I thought writing this story would help me work through the traumas and heartaches of my youth. Before then, I never thought I could dig deep enough emotionally to put those pieces together; it seemed the defenses I had built to protect myself from the pains of my past allowed me to see only fragmented aspects of my story and not a unified whole.

At the top of the first page of Mom’s diary, in her distinct cursive hand, she wrote, Written as if addressing our four sons. Hearing her voice as I read these words soothed my tormented memories and allowed me to remember the entire episode of my life, fifty-five years after our nightmare began. What follows is not a rehash of my parents’ experiences, but the perspective of a child growing up in a world he barely understood but who was thrust into monumental circumstances. This is my story, Sid Stockdale, pulling back the layers, defenses, and calluses of a boy coming of age in one of America’s most turbulent and controversial times. This is what it was like growing up Stockdale during Vietnam.

Chapter 1

September 9, 1965

Dad had a restless sleep and woke just before 5:00 a.m. on Thursday, September 9, 1965. It was going to be a big day; one he had been waiting for over a month. This was their last day on the line before the US Navy aircraft carrier USS Oriskany headed to Hong Kong for a much-needed rest, and another US carrier took its place in the South China Sea off the coast of Vietnam.

Their target that day was significant as well: the Dragon’s Jaw Bridge. As the carrier air group commander, or CAG, my father and his fellow pilots had bombed the Dragon’s Jaw on numerous occasions, but the monstrous structure, which carried the major north-south truck and rail supply line from Haiphong Harbor to the waiting North Vietnamese troops in the south, still stood. Today they were going to take it down once and for all.

Two levels below the flight deck, the Oriskany was abuzz with four dozen pilots dressed in full flight gear receiving a final briefing about their mission from Dad in the ready room. Dad stood in front of a large wall map reviewing gathering points, the timing of different attack groups, and the schedule for the in-flight fueling of the F-8 Crusaders. All the pilots paid careful attention to the details; they knew that life and death, success, or failure, hinged on even the smallest piece of their mission.

Simultaneously, the ship’s mechanics and launch crews were making their final preparations on thirty-seven fighter planes positioned tightly around the flight deck: A-4 Skyhawks for flak suppression, big single-prop Spads for high altitude bombing, and the star of the show, the F-8 Crusaders, each outfitted with two two-thousand-pound bombs meant to end the reign of the Dragon’s Jaw.

Finally, the ready-room speaker squawked, Man planes! The dance began.

The stream of pilots climbed the ladders, stepped out onto the flight deck in the early morning sun, and in a flurry of activity and noise, hurried to their planes. Once in the cockpit, they threw switches and checked gauges to ramp up their electrical systems. Dozens of sailor-technicians in blue, brown, red, or green shirts completed their final checks and headed for the catwalks to be replaced by the yellow-shirted plane directors.

Stand by to start engines! the bullhorn boomed out, and the cacophony of jet noise and massive Spad engines erupted while thick black smoke poured from their exhausts. The yellow-shirts wearing helmets equipped with noise-canceling headphones quickly directed the planes using precise arm signals in the tight space. Aircraft swung into position, and within minutes they were being launched skyward by the enormous steam catapults, with others quickly put in line to follow.

The launch was choreographed to ensure little time or fuel was wasted, and it went off like a ballet. But as the armada of aircraft settled into its formation at 32,000 feet, they were informed by a forward weather plane that visibility at Dragon’s Jaw Bridge was zero-zero. This meant they couldn’t strike the target they’d all been eager to knock out. The letdown was palpable over the radio waves—the Dragon’s Jaw had been spared, for now.

But soon enough, each pilot heard Dad’s characteristic radio call sign in their earphones; This is Double-O-Seven, proceed to secondary targets as briefed.

Like clockwork, planes in groups of twos and threes broke off in different directions to put their payloads to good use on lesser targets. Dad and his wingman broke left and followed the coastline north for sixty miles to a railyard where he had made good use of bombs in the past. He hadn’t encountered any antiaircraft fire at this location, either.

Dad was flying an A-4 Skyhawk, which was much smaller and less powerful than the F-8 Crusader he typically flew. But as Commander of Air Group 16 in charge of all the squadrons on the Oriskany, he led by example and flew every type of aircraft.

As Dad approached his target area, he accelerated through 400 knots. He checked his cockpit clock and saw it was 12:10 p.m. The thought crossed his mind that they would be back aboard ship about 1:00, in time to grab a bite of lunch.

Returning his focus to the mission, he soon spotted the train and descended through the clouds to drop his bombs on the row of boxcars. Boom, boom, boom—my father had just released his load and began to pull up when he suddenly heard the blasting sound of a 57mm antiaircraft gun at short range. The hair stood up on the back of his neck.

He quickly looked to his right and down at the mobile gun, which had fireballs shooting out of its barrels. He felt the shuttering impact of the blasts on his plane and knew he was badly hit. Fire-warning lights started flashing brightly on his instrument panel, then all the red lights came on—he was in trouble. The control panel flickered, about to go out, and then my Dad was thrown violently forward against his seat belt as the plane went into a zero-g nosedive.

Mayday, Mayday! he called to his wingman just as his plane reversed pitch and slammed him back deep into his seat so forcefully that the G-force prevented him from reaching the overhead ejection curtain. All this occurred in a split-second, and in that panicked moment his gaze caught the waters of the Tonkin Gulf just three miles ahead. He thought, if only I were in a powerful F-8 Crusader, I could hit the afterburner and shoot out over the water to safely eject and be scooped up by navy helicopters from the water.

No such luck. He was pinned inside a little A-4 that would soon break apart. The clock was ticking.

Just then, he was able to grab the alternate ejection handle between his legs and pull.

Wham!

The cockpit canopy shot off and he was blasted upward in his seat into the air and free of his disintegrating aircraft. The sudden impact of ejecting at 450 knots felt crushing. Seconds later, the cockpit seat fell away and he found himself flipping and spinning through the air while his parachute was deploying behind him like a leaf in a tornado. Falling toward the jungle below, he continued tumbling over and over until his parachute finally caught with a snap.

With his canopy fully ballooned, he slowed and found himself upright, but with his newfound stability time seemed to suddenly accelerate. He looked down and saw a small town two hundred feet below and heard rifle fire and bullets whistling past. He realized he was going to land close to the main dirt road that was coming up fast. One hundred eighty feet, one hundred sixty feet, one-forty, one-twenty …

Dad dropped through the top of the jungle’s trees, bracing himself for impact when he hit the ground, but instead he felt his chute get snagged in a tree, the harness straps cutting into his legs and stomach from the sudden stop. He dangled for a second until the chute ripped and gave way, dropping him the rest of the way. He landed standing up on the dirt road.

He quickly unclipped his parachute harness to break free, but then heard the thundering mob of town roughnecks bearing down on him from the right. They were all screaming, some wielding clubs and rocks. My Dad wobbled, and the herd plowed into him at full force—punching, kicking, twisting, smashing him with rocks. He started to feel woozy from the onslaught, but somewhere in his dim conscience, he heard a police whistle.

North Vietnamese soldiers had appeared, and they pulled the crowd off Dad.

On the other side of the world in Southern California (the time difference making it the evening of September 10), Mom had just put my younger brothers Stan (6) and Taylor (3) to bed in our home on A Avenue in the navy town of Coronado across the bay from San Diego. My brother Jimmy (14), now a sophomore in high school, was still awake, but I was away in Los Altos Hills in northern California visiting my best friend Hank and the Collins family.

At about 10 p.m., a navy chaplain along with Doyon Salsig, Mom’s best friend, knocked on our front door. In the living room, they informed my mother and Jimmy that Dad had been shot down over North Vietnam. Dad’s wingman had witnessed him eject and saw his parachute deploy, but lost sight of him when he hit the ground. The official word was that my Dad was missing. I can only imagine the painful, life-shattering shock that smashed into my mother and brother.

The very next day, on September 11, I flew home to San Diego, completely unaware of what had transpired over the past forty-eight hours. It was early evening, and I was excited to be returning home to begin getting ready to enter the 6th grade.

Mom met me at the airport, and we climbed into our Chevy station wagon to head home. But rather than starting the car, she sat silently for a few seconds, looking straight ahead with both hands on the wheel. I’d never seen her do anything like this, and as I regarded her, I noticed the exhaustion in her face and the slump in her usually straight posture, as if the air around her was crushing her. She then turned to me in the back seat and told me Dad was missing.

Although I heard her words clearly, what she said didn’t register for another second.

What? was all I could get out, her words reverberating in my head as if I were standing in a cavern … missing … missing … missing. My head started to spin as the meaning of what she said sunk in—my father was gone, lost, unaccounted for in a war zone where people were fighting and dying. And missing … what did that mean?

I got hysterical and began to cry uncontrollably. A jolt of electricity shot through my body and the oxygen sucked out of my chest and my throat constricted. Mom was crying too, tears smearing her mascara. It was a trauma like nothing I had ever experienced, as if I was living a nightmare while being awake, trapped inside the backseat of our station wagon.

After at least ten minutes of shock and tears, we finally were able to calm down and started driving toward the ferry landing. When we pulled up in front of the house and went inside, the looks on my brothers’ faces told me I was the last to hear the news. None of us knew what to say or how to behave; we all wanted to be alone and away from the awkward silence.

I went to my room and cried until I couldn’t cry anymore. I still didn’t understand the concept that Dad was missing, and I kept trying to push it out of my mind. I felt an emotional burning deep in my gut and worried about the unknown. I could not believe my father was dead, the notion impossible to fathom, but I did envision him in a very dark place.

After a while—I have no idea how long—Mom came to my room to comfort me but seeing the anguish in her eyes only made it worse. She was doing all she could to be strong, but horror and hurt permeated everything in our new reality. I don’t remember falling asleep that night. I just remember crying until I was exhausted.

Chapter 2

Sunset Beach

After receiving the news my father was missing, my life felt disoriented and confused, and I didn’t know how to behave. There was the initial shock of being told Dad was missing, trying to figure out what that meant, and dealing with the hurt and fear. And then there came a time when the shock was over, and I just had to quietly acknowledge the reality. I’m sure my brothers went through a similar experience, albeit each in his own way.

Mom put on a good face and tried to get us ready for the start of the school year, but she was obviously suffering tremendous stress and my natural reaction was to help and support her however I could. Although we avoided the topic when we were together as a family, from time to time each of us would share our private thoughts and worries with Mom individually. For me, these conversations usually occurred when I went to bed and tried to sleep. Mom would come to say good night, which was frequently when I had the hardest time controlling my emotions. The events of the day were put to rest and my inner thoughts and fears would take over. It was hard not to be consumed by my anxieties, but it seemed worse to deny them—like a horror story that never ended until I cried myself to sleep.

Finally, after about two months of fighting to fall to sleep every night, I began to realize if I consciously recalled the details of happy memories from my earlier childhood, they helped push back the demons and let me drift off to sleep surrounded by good thoughts.

Of all my childhood memories, I recall the year I was eight as one of the happiest. It was 1962, two years before America’s official entry into the Vietnam War and three years before Dad would be shot down. Although there’d been some great times and memorable moments before then—a birthday party for my friend Hank Collins, the bike I received for Christmas two years prior, the rusty nail I stepped on that required a shot of penicillin—this was the year of big changes, the beginning of my awareness of life beyond our home in Los Altos Hills, California.

A lot was happening in 1962. The space race was in full swing, and NASA Astronaut John Glenn became the first American to orbit the earth. I remember watching the launch on our black-and-white GE television in the living room with my brothers, staring wide-eyed as the Mercury rocket sped toward space. In football—a sport I would grow to play and love—the Green Bay Packers beat the New York Giants 16–7 in the NFL Championship (the Super Bowl didn’t come around until 1967). And later that year in October, the world teetered on the edge of nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis. I wasn’t steeped in the intricacies of the Cold War at this age—geopolitics and the confrontation between the Soviets and the West were beyond my reach in the second grade—but I distinctly remember both my father and mother being on edge those thirteen days in October, my father especially.

At the time, my father was a lieutenant commander in the US Navy and a fighter pilot. At eight years old, I’d heard a few stories about how we—America, the home of the brave—defeated the Nazis and Imperial Japan in World War II, and that we’d emerged from the Korean War in 1953, but I didn’t know what being an officer in the military at one of the tensest times of the Cold War meant. Flying F-8 Crusader fighter jets was a big deal, and my father would soon be the commander of one of these squadrons going nose to nose with the enemy. My father graduated from the Naval Academy too, putting him even further into the